WordPress中的simplepie rss feed和reader

trying to create a simple reader that includes featured image, title and brief description. I have all of this now but it includes more than I want and I don't know how to shorten things up.

The feed actually shows the featured image twice. I was trying to get the image separate from the description and found a short code that did this. BUT I don't know the code to get it to show in my reader, so for now it's being pulled from the description. There is also a blurbage at the end of each that I want to remove "post name appeared first on...".

I'm pulling posts from http://blog.empow.me/feed to http://staging.empow.me (listed on bottom of page)

This is the code I have currently:

<?php
// Get RSS Feed(s)
include_once( ABSPATH . WPINC . '/feed.php' );

// Get a SimplePie feed object from the specified feed source.
$rss = fetch_feed( 'http://blog.empow.me/topics/News/feed' );

$maxitems = 0;

if ( ! is_wp_error( $rss ) ) : // Checks that the object is created correctly

    // Figure out how many total items there are, but limit it to 5. 
    $maxitems = $rss->get_item_quantity( 4 ); 

    // Build an array of all the items, starting with element 0 (first element).
    $rss_items = $rss->get_items( 0, $maxitems );

endif;

?>

    <?php if ( $maxitems == 0 ) : ?>
        <?php _e( 'No items', 'my-text-domain' ); ?>
    <?php else : ?>
        <?php // Loop through each feed item and display each item as a hyperlink. ?>
        <?php foreach ( $rss_items as $item ) : ?>

        <div class="empowblog-block">

                <a href="<?php echo esc_url( $item->get_permalink() ); ?>"
                    title="<?php printf( __( 'Posted %s', 'my-text-   domain' ), $item->get_date('j F Y | g:i a') ); ?>">
                    <?php echo esc_html( $item->get_title() ); ?>
                </a>
        <p><?php echo $item->get_description(); ?></p>


            </div>

        <?php endforeach; ?>
    <?php endif; ?>

I'm not real familiar with coding but I'm trying to learn to get this working the way we need it to.

Thank you!